HH: It’s probably going to be another miserable season for the Pittsburgh Pirates, but we’ll leave it out to Rick Santorum to tell us. Senator, welcome, and a Happy Easter to you.

RS: Well, thank you. Happy Easter to all your listeners. And we’re, hope springs eternal on the first day of baseball, right? We’ve had 20 losing seasons in a row in Pittsburgh, so I’m going out on a limb in saying that we actually have a shot this year of having a winning season. That’s about as far as I’ll go.

HH: Now when you were growing up, were you a Clemente guy?

RS: You know what? It’s really interesting. I was a big Willie Mays fan. My brother was a big Clemente fan. I mean, I like Clemente, but I was always captured by Willie Mays. I just thought he was just the best player out there, and I just admired him for what he could do. I mean, he just had all the tools.

HH: Well Senator, I know you’re taking a couple of days off, and I really salute you for giving your staff time to celebrate, whether it’s Passover or glory of Easter or whatever.

RS: Yup.

HH: But before you do that, I want to talk to you a little bit about something that happened last week, very serious. The President of the United States leans over to the president of Russia, and he says I need some space, I can be more flexible after the election. What did you make of that moment given all of your years in the Senate on Foreign Affairs, and your knowledge of the old Soviet Union and the current Russia? What did you think of that?

RS: You know, it’s funny, because I was out in California. I was just about to go to the Jelly Belly jelly bean factory, and to me, the stark contrast between Reagan walking out of ReykJavik, saying I’m not going to give up the national security of our country, missile defense for anything, and then Obama obviously very willing to give up that and frankly, probably, a lot more for politics. I mean, it sounds, it’s very clear to me. I mean, this is needing political cover to stand up and say he’s for something with the full expectation that after the election, things are going to be very different. And that’s a stunning admission on the part of the President. And it seems almost a disregard for the threat of any enemy of the United States, as if either it’s a complete naïveté on the part of this president as the seriousness of the enemies that confront America, or a desire to completely abdicate the field and retreat, become what many in Western Europe have become, which is a third-rate power, and a welfare state that cannot afford to be a first-rate power.

HH: Do you think he is being deceitful with the American people? Because when he says I need space, I need to get past this election, it’s implied that he’s not telling us what his real policies are going to be.

RS: Well, I think it’s pretty clear that that’s the case. And I think it’s pretty clear that the President has a very different agenda after the election. I’ve said this, you know, when people asked me back during the debates, you know, would you ever support Ron Paul for president given his isolationist attitudes? And I said yes, absolutely over President Obama, because I don’t believe President Obama’s going to be that different than Ron Paul when it comes to a second term. Remember, he was a virulent anti-war…he was to the left of Hillary Clinton on the war. And he came into office recognizing that you know, he couldn’t really adopt those policies and have any hope of reelection, given what the consequences would be to this country. But if you don’t fear reelection, and particularly when you have the likelihood that at least one House of the Congress will be Republican, you can really abdicate the field, and in a sense, blame both sides if things don’t go well. And that’s what I really do fear about this administration, that it’s not only what he’s going to do to rob us of our freedom here at home, but what he’s going to do to really rob the world of the last beacon of hope for the world for liberty.

HH: Now I want to play for you the President on Monday, after the disastrous argument from the perspective of the administration and the President last week before the Supreme Court. The President of the United States goes out and he says this.

BHO: I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism, or a lack of judicial restraint, that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law. Well, this is a good example.

HH: Now you’re not a conservative commentator, Senator Santorum. You’re a conservative candidate for president. What do you think of that rather astonishing statement?

RS: The astonishing statement is that he basically is trying to revoke Marbury V. Madison, that somehow or another, that the Congress can do whatever it wants to do, irrespective of what the Constitution says, and the Court is there to enforce the Constitution, and the limits on federal power, not as what we have referred to as the lack of judicial restraint, broadening federal power, creating federal rights. This was an attempt to limit federal power, not broaden federal power, which is really what judicial restraint is all about. This is a president taking a concept, turning it on its head, and equating the two, which is either…maybe, and I’m going to put a big maybe on this, maybe someone who has absolutely no understanding of the law, who has no real understanding from a legal perspective of the Constitution. But the President of the United States, who said he was a Constitutional law professor to make this kind of argument is not just disingenuous, it is boldly misrepresenting, lying to the American public about what judicial restraint is, what the role of the courts is, what the role of the president is with respect to the Court. This was one of the most outrageous attacks from one branch of government on another, maybe in the history, maybe since Roosevelt and the court packing time. I mean, that’s the kind of executive excess and lack of respect for our Constitution and the roles of the branches of government. Look, there’s nobody harder on the judiciary than I am, but I’m hard on them when they exceed their authority, not stand for the authority that has been given to them over the last 230 years.

HH: Let me play a little bit of his speech to the AP as well, because it goes on at length, and we can’t play it all. But here’s a key bit.

BHO: The year after next, nearly ten college students would see their financial aid cut by an average of more than $1,000 dollars each. There would be 1,600 fewer medical grants, research grants for things like Alzheimer’s and cancer and AIDS. There would be 4,000 fewer scientific research grants, eliminating support for 48,000 researchers, students and teachers. Investments in clean energy technologies that are helping us reduce our dependence on foreign oil would be cut by nearly a fifth. If this budget becomes law, and the cuts were applied evenly, starting in 2014, over 200,000 children would lose their chance to get an early education…

HH: And it goes on, Rick Santorum. We’ve got 45 seconds. He goes on to promise satellites falling from the sky, airplanes crashing because of a lack of air traffic control. What do you make of such demagoguery?

RS: It’s, you see the 40% increase in the budget, and what they want to cut back is a fraction of that. This is purely that. It is demagoguery. It is trying to scare the American public that we need, that government is the only one that can do these things. Half the things, maybe even a majority of the things the President talked about are things the private sector is doing more of than the federal government, and does it better than the federal government. And there’s no reason for the federal government to do it.

HH: Happy Easter, Rick Santorum, to you and your family. www.ricksantorum.com for people to find out more about what Rick believes and why he’s running.